#WHY ARE YOU MAKING IT SEXUAL???? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bugsbenefit · 1 year

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attraction in ST

or. oh god stop stripping the show of it's themes no please no it needs those, stopppp

actually making this post now bc i'm sick of people claiming anything remotely sexual or even kissing happening to the party (an opinion that often pops up in the context of byler) in s5 would be horrible, sexualising, or out of character for the show

ST has always had a realistic approach to kids growing into their sexualities. the show's never shied away from directly addressing sex and sexual feelings so i'm honestly amazed by the extremely puritan interpretation of the show. i'm assuming, in good faith, that a big part of it is coming from people not having seen the actual show in ages and are just forgetting how explicitly the show handles sexuality. instead of just assuming it's from culturally raised christian people, who feel uncomfortable seeing any portrayal of sexuality, no matter how tasteful or realistic

i'm also saying all this as an ace person myself, i get not being into sex and not wanting to see it. however, refusing to acknowledge entire themes of a fictional show just because i don't experience them is bizarre to me. sexuality is vitally important to a lot of the characters and isn't just there to be fun(gross). essentially, ST is the opposite of porn without plot

so just as a little reminder what's actually IN Stranger Things. canonically.

sorry i had this sc for ages and wanted to include it Somewhere, so here you go. at a little starter... dorry

also this is an old draft seeing the light of day now, if anything's worded weird it's bc i didn't read all of it over again so oops, grammar hard?

TLDR: the show has never shied away from explicitly addressing sexuality. buying into the puritan fanon version of the show is going to make your s5 viewing experience worse because that show doesn't exist

season 1

we're starting the show off with Stancy, which is very sexually charged in general. (even in s4 Nancy still experiences physical attraction to Steve despite them having unchanged compatibility) the plot surrounding them in s1 explicitly focuses on Nancy having sex with Steve and later regretting that choice. the scene that everyone remembers, is of course, the "explicit" (not really, because ST is really tasteful with how it shows these teens explore themselves) sex scene

they're in sophomore and junior year of highschool here. around 15 and 16 years old - yet the show doesn't shy away from letting them figure things out. and it's not like this sexual theme is contained in only that scene. it keeps coming back the whole season as Nancy tries to sort her feelings out and deals with the aftermath of that night

also sidenote here while still at Steve and his party: even Steve's friends are very casual with their sexualities. and yes, they can even explicitly mention sex and specific sexual acts, no holding back here

Nancy's character conflict in s1 very much hinges on her sexuality and sexual themes. and it's not like there is a magic you need to be at least this old rule to know what sex is on the show like so many people seem to believe, because even 12 year old Mike seems to very much know what his sister and Steve are up to. he even goes out of his way to use it against her

iconic line! but i've seen insane takes trying to spin this into something not alluding to something sexual. i'm sorry to say if he doesn't think they're full on having sex he at least thinks they're getting very intimate with each other regardless

so not even the youngest characters on the show are "innocent and pure" the way fandom likes to claim when it comes to sexuality. and of course they aren't. real 12 year olds know what sex is, they're young not oblivious

and the following seasons make that even more obvious

season 2

as of s2 the kids are getting more involved with the sexual jokes, not just making them about other people but even being directly involved with those themes themselves. which is also realistic. with 13 sexuality starts to get thrown your way by every possible form of media. lots of them start developing crushes, have no idea how relationships work, etc. it's messy, typical teens thrown into the dating game. (i say all of this from a developmental media psychology perspective thanks uni and not personal experience sorry lmao, i'm a bit too ace to have my own input here)

s2 features comedic and awkward mentions of sex(ual activity) towards Lucas and Max,

older peers giving their 13 year old friends well meant advice on how relationships work,

and has even younger characters play around with attraction/kissing/love as well, which is incredibly normal for kids to do at that age

they're all young and the show treats growing up realistically. while the theme of attraction or sexuality gets more relevant for them (in scenes that are often received with awkwardness by the characters themselves) the show offers them safe territory to stand on. none of them are directly confronted with sexuality and are instead offered people to seek advice from for example

meanwhile the sexuality theme for the older kids is still very much explicit. just as Nancy's arc is still heavily tied to her romance and sexuality (which ties into her non conformity themes - she's an ambition driven person trying to escape the culdesac life first and foremost)

not only do we get another sex scene (this time with a cut away), there's also explicit jokes about it after

sexuality on the show is continuously awkward and messy. Jonathan and Nancy are only 16-17 here - no one really knows what they're doing or what the right way to go ahead is and Jonathan rightfully almost does a spittake here. out of pocket Murray

sexuality. is. awkward. (we get is s2 thanks)

season 3

s3 gets even more explicit with it's awkward puberty sexuality themes

from Dustin talking about how much he likes kissing Suzie (and her liking him not having teeth for it?) which weirds Steve out to the repeating, awkwardly received, "happy screams joke" (which gets a callback in later scene)

sexuality is still awkward for them. it's a realistic approach to what 14 year olds act like and know. they're actively dating by now, they're kissing people And have messy relationship situations. all while still acknowledging knowing what sex and attraction is, duh, of course they know that. but i'm explicitly pointing it out because i see obscene amounts of people claiming the characters are completely sheltered and even implying that they know what sex is would be gross. to that i say, do you not remember being 14???

and while i'm at s3, also let it be mentioned that even the adults are suffering at the hands of the sexuality theme here. Hopper's hookups with random women are focused on in s1, but now that he's getting closer with Joyce they get very explicitly told to just have sex. literally

not putting the whole dialogue in here, i already have too many images because there's so many sex mentions in this show and he really just tells them their mating ritual is painful and they should tear their clothes off and fuck right now

thanks Murray, always insightful

season 4

and s4 has stopped just confronting the kids with the existence of sexuality, but is tentatively starting to explore mature themes more directly - which allows them to tentatively start exploring their own sexualities instead of just having to acknowledge the general concept of sexuality

Max gets to ogle shirtless Steve

Lucas has something under his bed that's never confirmed as anything except "100/10 gross" but had 90% of the audience i saw immediately assume something sexual (magazines or the like)

and has a bunch more direct nudges, from the kids "experimenting sexually" as Murray says

to Argyle explicitly telling Jonathan he needs to have sex with Nancy again

to Hopper and Joyce's escalating make out in a church while shirtless

to visual innuendos (i'm looking at you hose scene. this one wouldn't be such a big deal if there wasn't a genuine moral panic about it last year. which was crazy. people literally had to pretend the scene didn't exist to escape the witchhunting mobs, except instead of being killed for magic it'd be for looking at a canon scene and acknowledging it. crazy times - aside from that there's also more visuals you can take as innuendos in s4e1 which there's already posts about out there so i'm not getting into them here, i'm more focused on the overt textual references)

to Yuir extensively talking about pleasing women and making them cum (I'm sparing you from that, the sc in at the top was already enough)

to explicit graffities all over the place, like here as an example "give me head until i'm dead" which is in frame for the whole phone call and Steve talking about his bitchlesness. and is also some of the only easily legible text (i hope this is readable, most of my screenshots kind of died a bit so maybe you need to look at an actual clip to see the text)

that is aside from the "DRUGS" poster which touches on another point s4 makes. the show doesn't just explore sexuality, it also puts the kids into more mature situations in general (not talking about the deaths, this is a horror show), specifically drugs

Jonathan uses weed as a coping mechanism the whole season and Eddie even sells the stuff in full bags (insane weed selling practices btw, even i know that). Chrissy (17-18) wants to do weed and ketamine. and we also see Lucas (14) hungover after drinking at a party for the first time

the show does not shy away from portraying realistic teen experiences

Murray called s4 very well, the kids pound some bears, smoke some ganja, play nintendo, and experiment sexually

literally. you have drinking, weed, and confusing queer sexualities. they took this list step by step

and all of those pretty normal things teens tend to explore. and i say that as someone who was decidedly not into those things. the ace experience is a bit different, but i can still acknowledge how that period was like for my allo friends and people in general

there is an extreme push in this fandom to reject any form of sexual jokes or references in the show, made mostly by people being uncomfortable with portrayals of sexuality. however, the themes not only still exist, they're also very prominent throughout all 4 seasons and are important to a lot of the characters directly

and it's also noteworthy here to see how ST approaches it's sexuality theme. it grows with the characters. starting out as jokes and being received with awkwardness to slowly letting them figure things out on their own time and turns. an extremely realistic progression and very common for coming of age narratives such as ST. it's a far cry from shows exploring sexuality or sexual themes for the sake of the viewers enjoyment like Euph0ria (don't want it to show up in tags)

based on what we currently know s5 could very well be taking place in 1988 or later which would place the party at around 16-17 years old. going into the season with the fanon version of the show that is completely clean and non sexual will 100% set you up for disaster

ST is very realistic and non exploitative with it's exploration of teen sexuality so there is obviously nothing to worry about in the sexualization department, that's just puritan fear mongering. however, it's very likely that we're going to get more than holding hands or pecks on the lips from the characters that are now older than characters we've explicitly seen hook up before. there could be more intimate scenes or making out, yes. but there's also at least one basically guaranteed vulgar joke in there, all seasons have them

there's no real theorizing or speculation about s5 here, anything could happen and i'm not placing bets, i want the characters narratives to be wrapped up well first and foremost and trust the writers to do it well. however, going into s5 with some of the mindsets i've seen circulating on here and expecting the show to be "clean" and cater to a version of it that's never existed outside of purified fandom could genuinely make you feel blindsided by the shows canon themes

not targeted at anyone or anything specifically, just using this as a bit of a reality check of what the show is actually like after recently rewatching all of it in one go

#stranger things #you see people here get attacked for harmless kissing fics bc it's 'too sexual' meanwhile the canon show has teens explicitly having sex #the contrast is just crazy #lets not pretend half the show doesn't exist just bc it makes you uncomfortable #byler #because it's Relevant in that tag lmao #finally posting this older one (i'm even tagging it bc i'm so brave) since we're finally starting to be able to talk about the show like #you'd talk about any other show normally #and we're ignoring the puritans #sure why not talk more about the canon show

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s0fter-sin · 5 months

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sometimes i think about how wild a mw2 movie would be if they just dropped soapghost right in the middle with no warning or marketing. like imagine it being beat for beat the exact same, it’s your typical military action movie, promoted as just another military action movie then after they get to the safe house, ghost has to patch up soap and he’s still out of it, overwhelmed by the betrayal and everything he’s seen and ghost needs to ground him and keep him in the present, to remind him that he’s alive and safe so he kisses him and they have sex. the tantrums and the rants and the “ReAl sOLdiErS aRen’t liKe ThAt”, god i can taste it and it’s delicious

#theres never any talk of a relationship or sexuality crisis its just this moment of humanity and comfort to bring soap back to himself #real any time you need me by thirteenbullets vibes #theyre not the type of men to have something as normal as a relationship #theyre just everything to each other they know that and its enough #ghost can be such a complex character if you let him #this guy whos rejected his humanity has buried himself and become a ghost #willingly digging himself out of the grave to stop soap from digging his own #like how are there not more explicitly homoerotic military movies that actually pull the trigger (heh) on the homo part of the eroticism #you know how if movies have even a hint of queerness they wring it out for every drop of respresentation they can get #theres a hundred articles and its mentioned in every interview and it all journalists ask those actors #imagine it being a complete secret and everyone expects just a typical action movie #then boom battle buddy gay sex #like if it were a male and fenale character you would see that scene coming a mile away so why cant it happen with two guys #just doing it is the only way of normalising it #i still see men saying they act like brothers which is denial so strong even egypt is impressed #but imagine the general public expecting this manly man military movie then getting hit with the alone mission flirting and denying it #then getting smacked in the face with tender wound care and grounding love making initiated by the edgelord they were using as a self inser #coming out of my cage and ive been doing just fine.txt #soapghost #ghostsoap #ghoap #john soap mactavish #soap cod #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #cod mw2 #we’re a team. ghost team

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angy-grrr · 28 days

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i have an issue I see with ppl trying to make shippers "understand" their ship could not become canon, and I dont think many would expect it.

Why are we pretending being in your late 30s is being middle age? Dont get me wrong, being a middle aged person doesn't have to mean anything about someone, but its just- not middle age literally.

I dont really understand bringing that up anyways, iit feels wrong to me to believe just ppl in their teens and 20s could ever do anything pro LGBT+ in general... I find it insulting, as if this is a new thing or impossible to believe older people could believe in queerness in a positive light or be queer themselves. The main reason in the west, and im assuming other parts of the world, there arent as many or as visible is, well, because people were dying because of the AIDS crisis + the isolation from being older and every single public space made for or just young queers or cishet older adults.

I get the point, but if I remember correctly every time I see someone trying to do that (of course im believing they have the best intentions in mind), they have to bring up how this is a Japanese middle aged man as a good enough reason.

I don't really mind about what others want to believe or how much they care in terms of shipping -if you prefer to be casual and not paying that much attention to what's canon or not, good for you! Many ppl are also like that and its completely valid, here in this side of Tumblr might seem like all of us believe and theorize about their endgame potential bc we are the ones that usually make more posts or longer content. But I dont like those assumptions about queerness being tied to young westerners, and I wanted to rant a little bit.

Again, I dont believe that was the intention in any of those posts, and im not trying to call out anyone, just rant.

#grrr talking #I just researched a little bit and well #Kaito who wrote blue flag with the first queer protagonists being serialized by shonen jump #he is literally just 2 years younger than horikoshi #he ended blue flag when he was 31 #idk I just dislike how aging is being seen these days in the internet #we could say middle age starts around 45-60s depending on how long ppl usually live in your area #it would be a little worrying if 37 is considered middle aged considering ppl in Japan are known for living until their late 80s-90s #and stilllll #what's up with the age???#bring up the demographic bring up resistance from fans or how he just might not want to be remembered like that or be interested #but bringing age? why everybody that does this brings up age?#and also the sexuality of ppl we dont know #that has nothing to do with anything #an author being queer doesnt mean they want to make queer stories or characters #and an author not being queer doesnt mean they just want cishet stories #idk if I sound mean #I swear im just ranting ajdhjfhkdfshfksjh #you can look away folks

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neverevan · 1 month

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Someone needs to tell tim about relationship-baiting because no it's not really queerbaiting but if he didn't/doesn't intend on going anywhere with how he wrote them, it could feel like relationship-baiting to fans. Especially now that he's going a different way even though he *could* go with buddie on abc. He knows exactly if he gave a definite no on buddie, a lot of people would stop watching. So him saying hey I gave you those scenes just to make you happy felt... :/ not good. He has every right to do what he wants with his characters but yeah that was a weird thing to say

okay, I am absolutely not trying to be mean here, but this is such a stupid way of looking at it.

1) relationship baiting? could've gone that way? we got bi Buck confirmed after 7 seasons. I'm sorry if that's not a good enough of a story for you, because it doesn't involve being attracted to Eddie. it is strategically and storytelling-wise more expandable, interesting and provides a better base for an eventual buddie storyline if that's the direction they want to go into than getting them together straight off the bat.

we got authentic, good bi rep without having the character feminised to fit a stereotypical queer role on TV. it's a huge fucking deal. so what if you have to wait for buddie a bit longer? does that mean it's never gonna happen? cuz how is that baiting if that's what we get in the long run?

and even if we don't get it, it's not bait to show two male friends being close after spending about 100+ hours a week together and going through trauma after trauma together. it doesn't have to be romantic. it can be. it doesn't have to be.

2) wanting to make the fans happy by giving them their most favourite guys finally hanging out and having fun and giving moments of them being so close again? yeah, I don't see how that's weird, I'm sorry. Tim knows we love them and that we love to see them together; giving us scenes with them is a kindess on his part and is clearly something that makes fans happy, if not being able to see a single scene of 2-minute of them singing was enough to warrant actual death threats??

Tim is out there doing something for the fans and you guys are crying about it and poking holes at his words. this is why we're not getting shit. and ngl if people get louder and meaner, I full on won't blame Tim to not go there with buddie at all, cuz why would he reward that behaviour?

watch the show. enjoy what we get cuz we've been getting A LOT of good stuff this season. major television history stuff actually. we are renewed for another season. stop rushing shit. if the story goes there, it'll be because it'll make sense. just be grateful for once, I beg.

#and this isn't even mentioning the fact that eddie is allowed to have time to figure out his own sexuality before getting with buck #if that's the plan - which for the record i still think it is #allow them to breathe and get back on track there are a lot of things to untangle before we get there #getting little treats like the bachelor party along the way? that should make you happy not go 'uhm actually why aren't together yet'#please #buddie #911 #911 abc #ask #anon

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